This is quite interesting take on conferences. I completely agree that a lot of content is not new and can be found online anyways. It is always much more interesting to get to know the speaker and see where they are coming from on a more offline level. There are times when I do learn something new at the conferences, especially if I attend a session with a topic I am quite unfamiliar with (such as at NXNEi transmedia was a topic I wasn't quite aware of).